Gingrich to Piers Morgan: Let’s hold gun-control hearings in Chicago

posted at 3:54 pm on January 25, 2013 by Allahpundit

Twelve minutes long but worth watching in full, partly because Gingrich is in fine form and partly because it’s a nice demonstration of how futile and bad-faith the “debate” over guns is. Morgan’s point is straightforward: If gun-rights fans think it’s okay to ban machine guns because rapid-fire weapons are too dangerous for the public to own, why not ban assault rifles? Granted, automatics fire much more rapidly than semiautomatics, but you can still get off an awful lot of shots quickly with an AR-15 if you’re pulling the trigger fast enough. Gingrich comes at that logic from the other direction: If semiautomatic rifles are banworthy because you can fire rapidly in volume with them, why aren’t semiautomatic pistols also banworthy?

The answer, if you talk to an honest gun-control advocate, is that they are. They’d love to ban all semiautomatics. It’s wildly illogical to focus only on one type if you’re worried about rapid-fire weapons, to the point where Morgan is left arguing here that we need to get rid of rifles but not pistols because, um, well, that’s the sort of weapon that lunatics like James Holmes and Adam Lanza seem to prefer — as if they wouldn’t resort to pistols if rifles were off the market. (Holmes and Lanza both had semiautomatic pistols on them during the shootings, in fact. My hunch is that the reason spree killers prefer “assault rifles” to pistols has little to do with lethality and everything to do with image. They’re on an insane power trip, and a bigger gun that resembles a machine gun adds to the thrill.) But Morgan knows that banning all semiautomatics won’t fly politically, at least right now, because most Americans believe in the right to own a gun and semiautomatic pistols are by far the most common type of gun that they own. So he’s forced to push this phony distinction between rifles and pistols to keep up the “reasonable regulations” facade and reassure fencesitters that he only wants to eliminate a few really dangerous guns, not the sort of guns found in many American homes that are … almost precisely as dangerous as the “really dangerous” ones he wants to ban.

Hence Gingrich’s point about the gun-control slippery slope. You can’t trust Morgan et al. to ban one class of weapons but no other; the logic of their position ultimately won’t allow it. And the failure of their polices will only be used as an argument that they haven’t gone far enough. That’s why he’s emphasizing Chicago. But never mind all that. Per WaPo, it sounds like Obama might have some of the Sandy Hook families in attendance at the SOTU, so unless you want to be a hateful bastard who doesn’t care that children were murdered, it’s time to stand aside.

Bob Dole once quipped that “the most dangerous place in Washington is between Charles Schumer and a television camera,” On the other hand, if you want to see ChuckYou and other Democrats reduce their speed to “old-lady-snail-with-turn-signal-permanently-engaged,” then invite them to discuss guns and crime in Chicago.

ChumpThreads — inadvertently — let the racist cat out of the bag the other day…

Homicides committed in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012: 27.

That is the statistic that has changed everything.

chumpThreads on January 16, 2013 at 2:53 PM

Duly noted that the 512 murders of primarily minorities in Chicago last year CHANGED NOTHING in your estimation.

It takes dead WHITE children from WEALTHY areas in states like Connecticut to light a fire under the asses of Proggies.

Minorities, who live in urban areas where they are killed by handguns sold on the street and, thus, never subjected to background checks, are SO SOOL.

Per WaPo, it sounds like Obama might have some of the Sandy Hook families in attendance at the SOTU, so unless you want to be a hateful bastard who doesn’t care that children were murdered, it’s time to stand aside.

Why dont republicans hold a news conference after Obama’s STOU speech, and surround themselves with children who will be victims of Obama’s generational theft, and who will be hammered by Obama’s excessive spending?

Yep, a newspaper editor who was fired for printing faked photos of UK troops “torturing” the enemy has an immediate credibility problem. I am thrilled that he has made himself the spokesman for gun control.

Duly noted that the 512 murders of primarily minorities in Chicago last year CHANGED NOTHING in your estimation.

It takes dead WHITE children from WEALTHY areas in states like Connecticut to light a fire under the asses of Proggies.

Minorities, who live in urban areas where they are killed by handguns sold on the street and, thus, never subjected to background checks, are SO SOOL.

Resist We Much on January 25, 2013 at 4:07 PM

It is a PR thing. They know that suburban housewives in PA are going to be moved to action over the deaths of little upper middle class white kids, but will just shrug off the deaths of poor minority kids. There are really two Americas.

Also, my newest favorite hypocrisy of the day is that Congress apparently exempted itself from the Assault Weapons Ban. Congresscritters should have the right to protect themselves from anonymous crazies, but average middle class lady with abusive ex shouldn’t be able to.

The Blaze has a story today about a young man who used an unloaded AR15 to ward off two men who broke into his home and held his roommate by gunpoint. They fled when they went to enter his room and saw the barrel of the AR15. These men broke into their home through a basement window which is something that could happen to any of us.

But never mind all that. Per WaPo, it sounds like Obama might have some of the Sandy Hook families in attendance at the SOTU, so unless you want to be a hateful bastard who doesn’t care that children were murdered, it’s time to stand aside.

The speed of wanna be tyrants is increasing. Purging of the military of non compliant Obama Bots, the full court press of the gun grabbers, the compliant non-questioning press, all point to the outcomes that history teaches will occur. That is why the education and cultural underpinnings of our society needed to be attacked. We are on a quick slide to banana republic status and lower. Hold on tight.

The military M4 shoots only 3 round burst so it’s a semi.I was in a senior NCO class on budgets when the M4 was just coming out.One of the papers we had was a study of ammo used during VietNam that stated 12 million rounds were used per kill with the automatic M16.

Why don’t your insane anti-liberty and anti-self defense ideas work in places like Chicago or the UK?

Galt2009 on January 25, 2013 at 4:03 PM

in the UK they work like a charm, and they’d work in Chicago as well but for the lax gun laws in neighboring areas.

sesquipedalian on January 25, 2013 at 4:05 PM

Right after Newtown, it was either you or bayam who posted a link to a story about where the Chicago gangs got their guns. Buried in the bottom of the story, one of the gang leaders said that they stole many of their weapons from railroad freight cars parked in Chicago railroad yards.

Why dont republicans hold a news conference after Obama’s STOU speech, and surround themselves with children who will be victims of Obama’s generational theft, and who will be hammered by Obama’s excessive spending?

Per WaPo, it sounds like Obama might have some of the Sandy Hook families in attendance at the SOTU, so unless you want to be a hateful bastard who doesn’t care that children were murdered, it’s time to stand aside.

The next group of citizens who will be offered the “opportunity” to die for their country on the front lines in battle should probably be the kids. It’s only fair since they have been honorably serving for years as human shields for the Democrats key legislative pushes, they should at least be able to put in for combat pay.

“In conclusion, I can spare those Americans who want me deported a lot of effort by saying this: If you don’t change your gun laws to at least try to stop this relentless tidal wave of murderous carnage, then you don’t have to worry about deporting me…Although I love the country as a second home and one that has treated me incredibly well, I would, as a concerned parent first – and latterly, of a one-year-old daughter who may attend an American elementary school like Sandy Hook in three years’ time – seriously consider deporting myself.”

– Piers Morgan, 29 December 2012

Dear Piers:

Er, to where are you going to self-deport? Even many Brits don’t want your pompous arse back – “We got rid of him once. Why should we have to suffer again.”

I’m was thinking “The Land of the Rising Google Bank Accounts” – Bermuda – might be a good fit. Plus, President Obama “gifted” Her Majesty and Bermuda 4 Uighurs from Gitmo. How fun! There’s got to be a 12 Days of Ramadan or Obama song in there somewhere. “On the 4th day of —-, my true love gave to me, 4 Uighurs surfing…” Imagine the royalties!!!

On one level, I think you’re the type that actually believes you are one of the precious and that everyone loves you. Sort of like Madge. Yes, at 54, any woman would KILL to have her body, but NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THE BOOBIES AND VAJAYJAY ON STAGE ANYMORE…OK, maybe, Ray Charles. If she had any sense or class, she’d take some lessons from Dita von Teese. Ahem.

Remember when everyone made fun of Obama for writing two books about himself before he was 50: Dreams from My Father (34) and The Audacity of Hope (45)? Well, how phun, phun phunny is the fact that you’ve written THREE: The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade (40), Don’t You Know Who I am? (42), and God Bless America: Misadventures of a Big Mouth Brit (44)?

On another level, you’re George Constanza. I remember that I tagged Obama with that label immediately following the first debate (the jerk store called…), but my good man, you bring some serious ‘nutter game.

EIGHT YEARS AFTER after you were frogmarched out of your office at The Mirror for knowingly running hoax pictures of British soldiers “torturing” Iraqis, you are STILL Tweefending yourself and blaming a vast-right-wing-Neo-Con-Israel-Firster-Bilderberger-NWOer-Tri-Lat-CFRer-Freemason-NRA-Globalist-False-Flag Planner-MK-ULTRA Practitioner-Paid Propagandist-CIA-MI6-DGSE-Mossad-conspiracy for photoshopping those pictures on the same Olympia manual typewriter that created that did not create Dan Rather’s “fake, but accurate” Bush AWOL documents forgeries.

After the Leveson Inquiry said this about you, specifically:

“…[C]learly prove is that he was aware that [phone hacking] was taking place in the press as a whole and that he was sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it.”

…and coupled with the aforementioned FAUX FOTOS, I find the irony deeeeelish when you complain about “FAUX News.”

You’re STILL fighting the War of the Faux Roses Iraqis, which you lost… long ago.

You’re STILL fighting the English Reformation, which you lost… long ago.

You’re STILL fighting the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, which you lost… long ago.

You’re STILL fighting the English Revolution, which you lost… long ago.

You’re STILL fighting the Glorious Revolution, which you lost… long ago.

You’re STILL fighting the Act of Settlement 1701, which you lost… long ago.

You’re STILL fighting the American Revolution, which you lost… long ago.

You’re STILL fighting Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753. You’ve been losing, but against the will of the British people, the Fabian Socialist Archbishop of Canterbury, who fought to open the CofE to gay priests, but has retired in protest, the grassroots and peers of the Conservatives, Muffin Cameron will win SSM for you…even if it puts Ed the Red or Boris in 10 Downing.

[For the record, I’m pro-SSM, but I, like most Brits, don’t rank it very high on our list of priorities. Please see Joe Biden for a clue and a “three-letter word.]

Nothing, however, can win back your integrity, trustworthiness, Q-rating and “Why you matter” factor…although I’m sure that China or Son of Son of Kim in NorKo will take you.

If PSY can be the Elvis of South Korea, surely, you can be the Edward R Murrow of North Korea!

After all, you’ve always been great at spouting propaganda and weaving faerie tales of the blissful nature of My Progressive Little Ponyland, which is, of course, a gun-free zone where unicorns and teddy bears can marry and produce litters of lollipops and cupcakes with sprinkles.

communist low IQ scum seque… the main issue in gun violence is that most of it is done by democrat voters in totally controlled liberal cities… that is the fact… liberals are the culture of violence…. now go and f**** yourself slave of the State…

I’m all for it. The idea that we need to ban guns comprehensively across the country to really make a dent on gun violence in high-crime areas is a fine campaign plank for Democrats in 2014.

Allahpundit on January 25, 2013 at 4:28 PM

allah, stop being a republican and be an american for a second. not every movement’s so goal is to garner a political victory. The gun control battle is a politically costly battle to save lives. I think democrats are willing to lose seats if it means less innocent deaths from guns.

Granted, automatics fire much more rapidly than semiautomatics, but you can still get off an awful lot of shots quickly with an AR-15 if you’re pulling the trigger fast enough.

This goes for just about 90% of the firearms sold today, pistols and mom Ar15 type rifles alike. Semi-Automatic firearms have been around for more than 100 years. These mass shootings have only been a problem for the last 20 or so. That tells me the problem is not the guns.

allah, stop being a republican and be an american for a second. not every movement’s so goal is to garner a political victory. The gun control battle is a politically costly battle to save lives. I think democrats are willing to lose seats if it means less innocent deaths from guns.

first, as you should know, britain has had a particularly bad (in the european context) gun problem, partly as the legacy of irish separatism. second, one event is an anecdote, not a meaningful statistic.

the question should be, how come there are no daily mass shootings in the UK? and the answer is that knives don’t do mass murder.

I think democrats are willing to lose seats if it means less innocent deaths from guns.

nonpartisan on January 25, 2013 at 4:31 PM

Well yes, because although they never save anyone’s life, they can afford a few lost seats. I mean for crying out loud they own both wings in all but name and have Obama in the White House…a few lost seats is nothing.